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India’s daughter – should we watch it? I don’t care!

I am one of those few who saw the banned documentary “India’s Daughter” before the content was taken off for India.

It saddens me that the debate today is on whether to watch or to not watch a documentary.
I don’t have a view on whether it should or should not be banned. That is not my concern. I DON’T CARE.

What is this documentary about? It tells story of Jyoti Singh and her abusers. It is like another documentary, sharing thoughts of Jyoti’s parents and someone who knew her and sharing thoughts of accused and their family. It presents opinions and some statistics like a documentary would. No, it does not talk descriptively about rape of a 5 year old as being shouted by Arnab Goswani on Times Now. No, there is nothing on it that seems to threaten anyone’s privacy. What happened to Monica Lewinsky was surely bringing her private life to public. This documentary is not. In fact if I have to evaluate this documentary, it is just an average one in how it even presents its case. They have not mentioned what the abusers were thinking, whether they had planned to do this or they just saw her and one of them decided to take a go. The documentary surely puts India in a bad light. From the land of elephants and snake charmers to a land of slums, now India becomes the land of rape.

I don’t care whether this documentary is or is not be banned.

I care about what is happening in my country. This is not the culture that ever has or ever should promote crime against anyone in any form. There is something wrong and all the crimes reported are symptoms of bigger problems. I am only talking about one of the most heinous crimes ever – rape.

Rape is a symptom of bigger problem and this has been articulated in softest of voices by few people in all the television debates on this documentary for the past 2-3 days.

Rape is not just about sexual satisfaction. Sexual satisfaction is available. It is available with enough red lights in various parts of the world. Yes I mention world not India because this problem is not only in India. It is a disease the world over and I could find this without putting a lot of effort; this data is consolidated on wiki already – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics.
And those who blame such heinous acts to women enticing them or ‘filmi culture’, have to just look within their own homes. For every reported case, there are several sexual assaults at home that go unreported. They also have no answer to rape of 5 year old, of 80 year old, in marriage, by relatives and neighbors and of young boys.

Rape is not about enticement or sexual satisfaction. It is more than that. Some research suggests rape is just a show of power. Or to achieve what is not reachable, like in case of the Uber rape case. In case of Jyoti, the boys just wanted to party and have fun.

Rape is not part of a culture, of any culture! It is work of a sick mind.

The culture of treating woman like a flower that should not be crushed and protected is long gone.

There are women who are blessed like me to be raised in a family of powerful women without any bias between my brother (or any boy) or me and to be married to a man who is free of any such bias. The outrage on Jyoti’s case happened because we are moving towards a society where there are many women like me. We are independent, work, can earn as much as any man does (except for the workplace bias on salary), have a social life, party and do not depend on anyone to take care of ourselves. Jyoti was one such progressive woman from a progressive family. She had a bright future which is well…

If this progressiveness threatens some men like the two lawyers of the abusers, they need to deal with it.

Media instead of debating the documentary can play meaningful role by creating awareness. Their job is TRP and not to bring about social change, isn’t it? And then they talk about power of media.

What we need is to keep progressing and changing mindset of one person at a time when we can. We will not stop and we have enough men and women in this society who will support us.

This blog presents my personal views. Any references used will be appropriately credited. Any thought, idea, sentence, concept etc picked from my writing should be appropriately credited to this blog if its mine or to the author I might have refered to.
~Mayanka